You Can Steal My Wife, But You Can't Steal My Water

• Description: You Can Steal My Wife, But You Can't Steal My Water. Should the state pour its scarce water into river courses that are good for fish and paddlers or slake the thirst of its growing cities?
• State: CO
• Date: 7/31/2004
• Author: Barcott, Bruce
• Title: You Can Steal My Wife, But You Can't Steal My Water
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: News Article/Press Release

I ob,.bsis Widely regarded xs thestd. e s'leading Water jurl
and 'historian. He's a man who embraces his Western herita
Old maps of Colorado hang in his office and he likes to "cowboy
up" his business attire with a splashy bolo tie and pointy boots.
"Colorado's water law was a radical break," he said. "There is no
obvious precedent fort-his law." In other words, the Rocky Moun-
tain framers just made it up.
Amazingly, pure prior worked. The prairies bloomed with a
thousand farms. An even stronger version of the doctrine made
it into the state's 1876 constitution. "The right to appropriate the
unappropriated waters of the natural streams of the state for
beneficial use in order of priority shall never be denied," the set-
tlers wrote. The clause proved to be more - radical, perhaps, than
its drafters realized. At the time, "beneficial use" meant crop irri-
gation, but that wasn't spelled out. So the phrase became a mar-
velously elastic term of art. Domestic use — meaning anything
other than lands or plants —was quickly deemed "beneficial."
ra ftl;rtr e:nratrbo r; httoprot�ctElienvtzs .11n�.11ymry79=
kite cawrado Supreme Court mail e it c:le i7 that "fire water board; ,
st but only tyre water board, had the right`to keep water in a stream.
ge: Until the city. of Golden decided to build its kayak course.
STEVE SCHAEFER REMEMBERS THE SILENCE OF GOLDEN
when the late -198os oil bust left half the town's storefronts
vacant. "Downtown was drying up," said Schaefer, the third -gen-
eration owner of Meyer Hardware, the main tool store in this
proudly independent town 15 miles west of Denver. "People left
for the strip malls and the suburbs" If not for the Coors Brewing
Company, the beer maker headquartered in Golden, the little
town might have blown away.
In the early 199os Golden embarked on a downtown fedevelop-
ment project —wider sidewalks, river trails, colorful plantings —
that played up the town's Old West charm and its potential as a
gateway to the great outdoors. The kayak course fit naturally into
the town's new image and capitalized on the rising popularity of
outdoor recreation. "New economy" may mean "high tech" in San
Francisco and Seattle, but in the rural
West it's all about skiing, kayaking, off -
road vehicles, and camping. Recreation,
after agriculture, is now the biggest
industry in the state.
. Kayak courses are artificial whitewater
parks set amidst naturally occurring rivers.
Hydraulic engineers shape concrete berms
and pile up boulders to create teeming rapids and foaming
rodeo holes. The courses are perfect for the latest in paddling
technology: shorter, more maneuverable kayaks called play -
boats. "With the new boats you can play in one spot on the river
for an hour, rather than having to plan a whole expedition,"
explained Chris Creamer, the owner of Alpenglow Mountain -
Sports in Golden.
A whitewater park is relatively cheap to build. Golden's cost
$165,000 and was completed in 1998. The town quickly began to
reap more than its money's worth in kayakers and spectators.
"We were astounded," said Dan Hartman, Golden's director of
public works. "We got hundreds of people coming down after
work, sitting on the banks to watch the kayakers. There were
boaters outthere at 6 a.m.I saw some aim theirtruckheadlights
on the river so they could paddle in the middle of the night! The
paddlers often stayed to have a drink and eat in a local restau-
rant. Local gas stations started selling inner tubes to families
who wanted tafloat the creek. Motels filled during competitions
held on the new course, like the Junior Olympics regional kayak-
ing championships. A town study estimated that kayakers and
their fans were adding nearly $800,000 to Golden's economy
each year.
Elated by its cash cow, the town soon focused on making sure
that nobody would come along and drain it. Upstream towns
on Clear Creek could potentially divert the water for new resi-
dents or mining operations. The people of Golden couldn't let
their kayak course turn into a mud puddle. So they did what
Coloradoans do to secure a water right. They went to court to
fight for it..
A Colorado farmer often refers to the water rights he
holds as "mY 401(k)," anticipating the day he'll sell out
to a needy suburb and retire on the proceeds.
Today the term encompasses everything from generating
power to suppressing dust and making snow.
In i8gi, the state legalized the sale of access to water separate
from the land it crosses, which effectively set in motion a century
of water grabs. Legendary in Colorado lore is the Rocky Ford Ditch
grab. In ig8o, a water speculator named Robert Spencer bought
an ailing sugar refinery in southeastern Colorado. Spencer didn't
care about sugar. He wanted the irrigation rights to 4,00o acres
of adjoining land. He bought the refinery, rights and all, for $13
million —and sold it six years later to the growing city of Aurora,
16o miles to the north, for $zz million. With a stroke of the pen,
z.7 billion gallons annually went from nurturing crops to filling
suburban bathtubs. Today, a right to water can often command
twice the price as the land it irrigates. A Colorado farmer often
refers to the water rights he holds as "my 4o1(k)," anticipating the
day he'll sell out to a needy suburb and retire on the proceeds.
Colorado's pure prior doctrine, however, does nothing to stop a
river from being dipped or pumped right out of existence. It does-
n't matter that killing a river means killing the wildlife that
depend on it. Fish can't stake a water claim. Fearing a collision
between state water law and federal protections for endangered
species, in 1973 the legislature gave the Colorado Water Conser-
vation Board the right to safeguard a river's water level. The board
had been established in the 193os to protect and develop the
state's water supply, and it now had the power to preserve the
natural environment as well
The "water buffalo" hated the preservation scheme because it
eroded the principle that water could only be taken out of a
stream in order to be put to beneficial use. For six years, they
5o July l August 2004